Smashed Hits 2.0

03 Sep 10 | Press Releases

Press release – 2 September 2010

Daniel Barenboim, Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood, Femi Kuti, Will Self and Gilad Atzmon discuss music and censorship in the new issue of Index on Censorship ‘Smashed Hits 2.0’ – publication date 8 September. In association with Freemuse.

Launch: 21 September 630pm at the Free Word Centre 60 Farringdon Road London EC1R 3GA (gmap).
RSVP [email protected] Tel: 020 7324 2522

For musicians, broadcasters, singers and their fans around the world, censorship is a fact of life – from legal threats against filesharers to restrictions on performing live. But some musicians and music lovers face more extreme conditions than others. In Iran, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei recently declared that music was incompatible with the values of the Islamic Republic; in Tibet, musicians are imprisoned for singing resistance songs and in Turkey, Kurdish singers can face prosecution for making political statements. In its latest issue, Index publishes interviews and articles by leading music writers and musicians on the challenges to free expression – whether digital, legal or commercial.

***Daniel Barenboim on his stand against censorship

***Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood on how the net sets musicians free

***Will Self on banning the Sex Pistols

***Femi Kuti on confronting censors in Nigeria

***Gilad Atzmon on how jazz gave him a political education

PLUS Negar Shaghaghi (star of ‘No one knows about Persian Cats’) on defying convention in Iran; Cameroonian singer Lapiro de Mbanga gives exclusive interview from prison; Louise Gray on hate music; Kaya Genç on Kurdish blues; Peter Jenner, manager of The Clash and Pink Floyd, on censorship in the music business; Gilad Atzmon on an education in jazz; Khyam Allami, Malu Halasa, Simon Broughton and many more

Listen to Index contributors’ playlists on iTunes and Spotify www.indexoncensorship.org/music

‘Smashed Hits 2.0’ available from selected bookshops and on Amazon
or subscribe on www.indexoncensorship.org/subscribe

Launched in 1972, Index on Censorship is the only magazine devoted to protecting and promoting free expression, and is published by SAGE – a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. www.sagepublications.com

For further information contact enquiries[at]indexoncensorship[.]org
Tel: 020 7324 2522

From Index on Censorship magazine: See no evil

18 Dec 09 | Uncategorized

klausen

The latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine carries this compelling interview with Jytte Klausen. She is a Danish academic at Brandeis University in the United States and the author of the first scholarly account of the Danish cartoons crisis. The interview focused on the decision by her publisher, Yale University Press, not to publish images of the cartoons themselves in her book.

Index on Censorship did not publish the cartoons during the original controversy four years ago. Should we do so this time? I believed it was my responsibility to refer the matter to the board of trustees. In any charity, it is the board that bears fiduciary and legal responsibility and has a duty of care to staff, and stakeholders, such as publishers and printers.

The board met on 27 October. After a detailed discussion, it decided reluctantly to recommend that the images not be published. One member of the board, Kenan Malik, who was unable to attend the board meeting, subsequently took issue with the decision. In response, and in keeping with Index’s commitment to free expression, the chairman, Jonathan Dimbleby, and other trustees agreed to publish the reasons for their decision, and to publish Malik’s dissenting view alongside.

John Kampfner, chief executive

Read Index chair Jonathan Dimbleby on the decision not to publish the cartoons here

Read Index board member Kenan Malik’s view of the decision here

See No Evil

Jytte Klausen talks to Index on Censorship about her new book on the Danish cartoons crisis and discusses why it was published without any illustrations
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Ken Saro-Wiwa’s family take Shell to court

27 May 09 | Index Index, minipost

14 years after Nigerian writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa’s was hanged along with eight other community leaders, his family take oil giant Shell to court for crimes against humanity over its activities in the oil-rich Niger Delta of southern Nigeria. Read more here